


slowly sinkin' down

by schreibner



Category: Druck | SKAM (Germany)
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Light Swearing, M/M, OLLA Parallels, david is a shameless indie film junkie, it's 'i just want david and matteo to be together and happy' hours, matteo is a hopeless romantic, soft makeouts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 13:17:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18621409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schreibner/pseuds/schreibner
Summary: In which Matteo watches OLLA once and thinks that he's got David all figured out.





	slowly sinkin' down

Matteo wakes to the sun creeping in thin rivulets through his blinds, and the second he does, he is convinced that he could easily return to sleep. But the light finally breaks through his blinds and his phone chimes on his bedside table, just distracting enough to cut through the temptation.

He props himself up on an elbow and flicks an old, half-spent joint out of the way, paying no mind to the way it rolls off his bedside table and flakes on the carpet. He glances at the time—12:13PM—and scrolls idly through his stream of incoming texts: a quick check-up from Hanna, trivial mundanities from his group chat with the guys, a greeting from his mother. He makes a mental note to write out a response to her later.

The newest message is from Jonas. He intimidates Matteo’s conversation history, because Jonas has hardly ever gone more than a day without texting Matteo – to muse about his recent hook-ups, to vent about exams, to send memes he thinks Matteo would find comical, to ask to hang. He smiles at one of Jonas’ previous messages – a candid of the both of them, Jonas’ arms around him in a headlock, Matteo scowling at the ground, but happy nonetheless, captioned simply as “my little bitch ❤️”. Matteo promptly saves the photo to his camera roll before reading Jonas’ most recent text.

 **Jonas**  
Hey, everything good? Are we seeing each other today, dude?  
12:16

 **Matteo**  
all good. can i take a raincheck? you know how it is, man...  
12:17

He sees the green dot pop up beside Jonas’ name in an instant. He rolls his eyes, because _of course_ Jonas would be hanging on by the edge of his seat, waiting for a text back. The response that comes is quick and casual.

 **Jonas**  
Spare me the dirty details for now. Take it easy, Luigi. ;)  
12:18

 **Jonas**  
Invite David to hang with us again sometime soon, yeah?  
12:18

Matteo shoots back a “he’ll just beat your ass in table tennis again”, to which Jonas acknowledges with a smiley face that informs Matteo he’s already accepted his ill fate. He closes out of the conversation, then sets his phone down to charge and rolls over.

David is a stunning, mussed-up dream in his bed, and for a moment, Matteo contemplates pinching himself to reassure himself that it’s not. Instead, he settles for reaching out and winding his fingers through David’s hair – it’s soft under his touch. David leans into the caress, perhaps in subconscious admission, and Matteo is immediately enraptured with the way his eyelashes flutter with visible complacency. Matteo lets his other hand gravitate towards David’s face and rubs his thumb against his cheekbone, taking in the little hum David draws out.

Matteo doesn’t know how much time drags on while watching David breathe in slow and steady patterns, but decides that that is the very least of his concern. He catches the way David’s nose scrunches up after a while, then the way he shifts ever so slightly and slowly rubs his eyes open. Brown irises glint gold in the sunlight and eventually fixate on Matteo – and it suddenly strikes him that this warmth, this intense, burning surge in the center of his chest, is something that not even Jonas was capable of inducing. He feels like it could swallow him whole like a forest fire. Matteo doesn’t know if he could ever get used to it.

“Hey,” is all Matteo manages to choke out. Whatever. Eloquence had never been his thing, anyway.

The smile that David offers him is something he could wax poetic for hours, however. “Hi,” David says, moving to fully face him. “Good?” he murmurs, softly butting his forehead into Matteo’s.

“Good,” Matteo affirms, leaning in to cup David’s face and draw them closer. He brushes his lips against David’s in a silent inquiry. David parts his lips in compliance, easily, and Matteo kisses him.

They kiss just like that, and spend the rest of their afternoon lazy and blissed-out, their legs entangled in the sheets of Matteo’s bed. Matteo eventually loses track of the number of times he’s been rendered completely breathless by each one of David’s soft little presses. Gradually, though, the insistence for raw intimacy lulls into a modest necessity for proximity, and somewhere along the way, Matteo finds himself lounging with his head on David’s chest.

David cards his fingers through Matteo’s hair and starts to talk about abstruse cinema with subdued gusto. Matteo clings onto every word, just more than content to listen to David babble about his latest schemes for an experimental film that he’s been mapping out for almost a couple months now.

“Have you ever seen _Un Chien Andalou_?” David asks, to which Matteo shakes his head no. David’s mental archive of indie films is astounding sometimes. “It’s a little bizarre, but you should. I’ve been taking a lot of inspiration from it lately.”

Matteo doesn’t think that he’d be able to get the title right, but he internally writes out a reminder to do so.

“Why do you want to make films?” Matteo asks after a beat of silence.

David gazes up at the ceiling and lets the thought sink in, as if he’s meticulously formulating an answer.

“It’s a bit selfish, but I want to make films more for myself,” he says, finally. “It’s... like an escape. My own little world, y’know? Just me, myself, and my thoughts.”

Matteo finds the thought charming, but oddly seclusive. He wonders, for a moment, how long David has held onto this guarded and isolated facade, and if he does it out of fear more than anything else. Matteo reaches out to link their fingers together.

“You’ll have to show me one day,” Matteo says. “Your little world, I mean.”

David smiles at that. “Well, you already have,” he says. “I mean. You’re the only person I’ve ever let go through my journal.”

Matteo shifts and rests his head on the palm of his hand; doesn’t even try to suppress the smug, upwards curl of his lips. “The only person, huh?” David reaches over to smack Matteo’s bicep. Matteo has to laugh. “Not even Laura?”

David rolls his eyes. “Do _not_ blow this out of proportion, Matteo.”

Matteo just grins. “I must be pretty special, then,” he murmurs, toying with the strings of David’s hoodie. Matteo nuzzles him, then, and doesn’t miss the way David visibly softens at his touch. It’s in moments like these when he fully realizes the effect that he has on David – when he gets to watch the walls crumble one by one and unravel a facet of David that many individuals won’t ever receive the pleasure of knowing, perhaps. It makes _now_ that much more intimate, that much more visceral. It makes Matteo want to grab at any and every opening David lets him have and take whatever he will give him.

David just stares up at him, ink dark hair falling to his forehead. Matteo ignores the sudden stagger in his chest. He closes in for a kiss, and—

His stomach growls, loud and unrelenting.

Matteo flinches back. David raises an eyebrow.

“Maybe that’s a sign we should get out of bed now,” David suggests, chuckling. He moves to sit up, and Matteo almost pulls him back onto the sheets. “Are you hungry?”

Matteo flops to the side, burrowing his face into David’s pillow. He breathes in his scent – a light, sweet musk. “Do we have to?”

“ _Yes_ , we have to,” David presses, digging an elbow into Matteo’s back. “I’d never hear the end of it from Hans if I willingly let you fall back into your old habits.”

 _That_ makes Matteo perk up and arch an eyebrow in David’s direction. “ _Hans_? Do you two talk shit about me behind my back, or?”

David grins, bright and wide. “Ah, well,” he says with a gentle shrug, “That’s between him and I.”

Matteo shoves at David’s shoulder in disbelief. David tips his head back in rancorous laughter.

Matteo flips him off.

“Yeah, I’m gonna have a talk with Hans,” Matteo says, running a hand down his face. “I can’t have him go around tainting your mind with weird intel about me.”

David gets off the bed and bends over to kiss him. It’s a gesture of consolation and reassurance that makes Matteo deflate in surrender. Still, Matteo reminds himself not to allow Jonas any time alone with David whatsoever anytime soon.

The flat seems desolate of bothersome roommates when they finally leave behind the comfort of Matteo’s bed for a late lunch, and Matteo silently thanks the cosmos for Alex, Linn’s parents, and whoever Hans’ weekend fling happens to be. He kicks David’s shin on their way into the kitchen, and without missing a beat, he just shoots him a one-finger salute in response. Matteo decides that he really, _really_ likes David.

David yanks their refrigerator open. Matteo just rests his weight against the counter and watches David carefully skim over the contents of their shelves.

“You’re surprisingly stocked,” David remarks, pulling out a half-case of salami. “Are you sure this is yours?”

Matteo pushes himself off the counter and snatches the salami out of David’s grasp. “I went grocery shopping yesterday,” he muses, and David looks seemingly affected. “But actually, the salami’s yours. Hans told me you gave it to him.”

“Well.” David chuckles, reaching in to the fridge to procure some cheddar from Matteo’s shelf. “I’d felt bad for fucking the kitchen up.”

“You’re too nice, you know that?” Matteo moves to pluck a rancid jar of pickles out and unscrews it.

David’s nose crinkles up in obvious disgust. “Absolutely not,” he says, immediately yanking it out of Matteo’s hands. “Leave it to me, yeah?”

Matteo just laughs at him. “What, you don’t trust me?”

David gives him a look that is highly accusatory. “After Friday’s culinary shitshow?” He pats Matteo on the shoulder. “I got this.”

Matteo raises both of his hands and steps off to the side, knowing better than to throw rebuttals at a David who is resolute. He just peers over David’s shoulder as he lays a hefty sliver of cheddar on a piece of bread.

“Tomatoes?” David asks.

“Sure,” Matteo says, jerking his chin in the general direction of the fridge. “Should be a couple in the bottom drawer.”

Matteo is entirely satisfied to watch David maneuver around the kitchen, just glad to be in his presence and hear him whistle as he chops a whole tomato into slices that seem suitable enough for a sandwich. It isn’t until David bobs his head to some imaginary tune, however, that Matteo experiences a brief spark of enlightenment. He slips his phone out of his pocket and swipes it open to scroll through his music library.

After thumbing through, he finally settles on a track and presses play.

The night he’d rented _Only Lovers Left Alive_ on his laptop, he’d foraged around online in forums for the title of the song. The track is an old, old jam – it’s mid-70s blues, to pinpoint the exact era, all warm and languid and hazy. Matteo just nods his head to the rhythm as the melody's soulful tones saturate the kitchen.

David stills, just then, and spares Matteo a look that is completely inexplicable. Matteo is awkward and uncoordinated and must look totally _absurd_ as he sways to the music, but he’s doing his best, at the very least. “You’ve heard this song before, right?”

“You,” David says, slowly resting the knife down on the cutting board. “Never fail to surprise me sometimes, you know that?”

Matteo snorts and snakes up behind David, arms circling around his waist. He noses at his neck, drinking in the little gasp David affords him. “That’s a good thing, I hope?”

“It's a _very_ good thing,” David murmurs, and when he rotates in Matteo’s arms to face him, he’s beaming so brightly that the sunlight cascading through the window is suddenly dim in comparison. David just loops his arms around Matteo’s neck and draws him closer, resting his forehead against Matteo’s, letting them succumb to the music and to each other. David is much better at maintaining the cadence than he is, very unsurprisingly, and Matteo simply decides to follow the pace he sets.

They ride out the rest of the song like this, artlessly rocking around the kitchen where someone could easily come home and catch them, but Matteo quickly concludes that he has zero fucks left to give the world. David is an unwavering warmth against him, and at some point, Matteo realizes that their positions have switched, with David at his back and his arms wrapped around his waist. Matteo knows that it’d be cliché to say that he’s in love, but when David twirls him around with a laugh and guides him in for a kiss, he thinks that he’s never been more certain about anything else.

 

 

 

 

 

Later that night, Matteo receives a message from Hans notifying their group chat not to expect him home until Sunday evening. Mia sends out a text in response of the same substance, more or less, and Linn attaches a photo with a caption reading “i don’t want to be here anymore :(“.

Matteo just types out a thumbs-up emoji, and reminds himself to thank the deities watching over him a second time.

They’ve relocated their little nest to the couch in the living room. Their empty dishes and beer bottles lie on the coffee table, and Matteo realizes that they won’t be attended to until Hans or Mia arrives and barks at him about it – a tiny sacrifice that he’s willing to make. A movie drawls on in low volume on the television—a late ‘90s Baz Luhrmann film starring a young, tantalizing DiCaprio from Linn’s minimal collection of DVDs, which David was, at first, quite enthusiastic about—but the pretty visuals and plotline remain tucked far away in the back of his mind. The more pressing matter at hand is the fact that David is presently half-straddling his lap, kissing his lips raw.

Matteo feels a little senseless when they part to take a moment to just breathe, minutes later, and bumps his forehead against David’s. “Can’t we just fuck out of Berlin and run away to Detroit?”

Immediately, David’s eyes sparkle with something that is a hint teasing, a hint adoring. “What would we do?”

Matteo shrugs. “Whatever we want,” he says, running his index finger down David’s cheek. “Tour the city. Visit some record shops. Go to some real dope techno raves.”

David just laughs, sliding off Matteo’s lap and settling for lolling his head against his shoulder. “Find some architectural wasteland and make it our home?”

Matteo presses his nose into the crown of David’s head. “How about a post-grad trip? Just you and I? If that’d, uh… if that’d make you happy?”

“Of course that’d make me happy,” David tells him, and it comes out easy, like it’s a no-brainer. He smiles, and Matteo feels at peace.

“Good,” says Matteo, fingers seeking David’s. “ _Good,_ ‘cause I’m serious. About you. About us.” As if in response, David wordlessly slips his hand in Matteo’s. “And, like – whenever you’re happy, I’m happy. That falls into… what is it again? The theory of entanglement, right?”

From his peripheral vision, Matteo sees David’s eyebrows perk up in obvious amusement. “Oh?”

Matteo chuckles, nudging David’s elbow. “You know what I’m talking about.”

David shakes his head. “Tell me about it. You think that it pertains to humans, too?”

The realization dawns on Matteo that this is David’s own way of making him talk, of drawing him out of the usual comfort he takes in laying low, this tendency to remain passive until he’s given a rare chance to express a thought or two of his own. Even then, he still flows with the majority, but finding his footing has always been a process. Matteo immediately feels undeserving, because David is simply too, _too_ good for him.

So he plays along. Matteo struggles to find his words for a moment.

“Sure. It's, like, so much deeper than the concept of soulmates.” Matteo turns his head to look at David. David just gazes at him, attentive and expectant. He continues. “Take… two people, for example. Maybe they were made for each other, but were somehow separated. Even if they were at the opposite ends of the universe, they’d still be together, or connected, at least, because – well, you already know how the theory goes. Whatever affects one will affect the other.”

There’s a heartbeat of silence. Matteo listens to David exhale deeply. “You seem convinced that it’s real,” David says, clearly entertained, but his voice is so soft Matteo almost has to strain to hear it.

“It's plausible to me. Because you're, like, my other half, or you complete me, or something like that.” The admission evidently surprises David, who blinks rapidly in response. Matteo smiles wide and feels vaguely impressed with himself. He moves to slip a hand beneath David's chin, tipping it upwards. “Because I feel like I've been searching the entire fucking universe just to find you,” he whispers against David’s lips.

The resulting rejoinder should have been enough to make Matteo feel smug for days, but when David blushes, redness blooming across his already ruddy cheeks, Matteo’s breath catches in his throat, because it’s rare when David is _shy,_ let alone a floundering mess. Matteo just stares, acutely aware of how his own heartbeat is roaring in his ears.

“ _Jesus_ , Matteo,” David grumbles, slapping his hand over his eyes. “I’d never chalked you up to be such a hopeless romantic. Having you watch that film was a horrible decision.”

Now Matteo allows himself to bristle with pride. “Shut up,” he says, but it’s nothing short of fond. He peels David’s hand off his face. “This is _your_ favorite movie we’re talking about here, not mine, David. Who’s the real hopeless romantic?”

“Still you,” David shoots back, jabbing a finger at Matteo’s chest. “Guess what I’m thinking about then. Since, you know, we’re _molecularly synchronized._ ”

Matteo hums, sparing a second to feign deep thought. “Me, obviously,” he tells him, finally, with a bat of his lashes. “Blonde hair? Always with a charming smile? Sparkling, pretty blue eyes?”

David huffs. “You might want to rethink that argument, because somehow, you’re not really persuading me.”

“Just admit that I’m right.”

David abruptly jolts up, sprawling on top of Matteo to push him down and gently pin him to the couch. He looks pleased – a little pompous, perhaps. Matteo wants to kiss that damned smirk right off his handsome face.

He just watches Matteo attempt to wrangle out of his grasp. Matteo mentally curses himself for every gym class he never thought to take seriously. A laugh bubbles up in David’s throat once Matteo finally relaxes and lets his head fall back onto the cushions.

David leans down to touch his lips to the tip of Matteo’s nose. “Eat shit, babe,” he whispers.

At that, Matteo has to fight letting out a groan, because sometimes, the things David _says_ just does unimaginable, earth-shattering things to him. “Okay,” he tells him, feeling a tad delusional, “Okay, _yeah._ We're making that a thing.”

David quirks a brow, but there’s the slightest trace of a sly smile. “Eating shit?”

“You’re a joke _._ ” Matteo swiftly pushes David off – David just lets him, and their positions are quickly reversed. “Hey, _babe._ ”

When David looks up and bites his lip, Matteo feels a hot shiver ripple down his spine, and his heart threatens to somersault right out of his ribcage. Self-control is promptly tossed out the window as he closes in to graze his lips across David’s jaw, reveling in the way it makes David go taut beneath his hands; the soft, strangled moan that it trawls out. Matteo trails down to David’s neck, then, unmapped territory, and flits his eyes up to look at David’s flustered expression, before softly scraping down with his teeth.

“ _Okay,_ ” David grits out, fingers flying up to root themselves in Matteo’s hair. Matteo only grins and presses a wet, open-mouthed kiss to the skin under David’s right earlobe. He feels fingers pull at his hair and twist. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Matteo notes that he _likes_ it. He'd revisit _that_ thought later. “ _Shit._ You win, alright?”

Matteo shoots his head up. David looks perfect right now, all sanguine and winded. “Nice,” he says, resting his head against David’s chest. He listens to David’s heart beat rapidly against his ear. “What do I win?”

David laughs, a little breathless. “Whatever you want.”

“ _Sick_ ,” Matteo trills, “Then I’ll have you?”

“You’re so _hopeless,_ ” David murmurs back, smiling. When they kiss again, Matteo closes his eyes, and for the first time in a long time, he feels that it is quite the opposite.

**Author's Note:**

> check out 'trapped by a thing called love' by denise lasalle and sob to the thought of datteo dancing to it
> 
> additionally: feel free to drop by my inbox and holler about david & matteo with me @ davidschreibner.tumblr.com :)


End file.
